


Not Quite

by ugandadistrict9



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Developing Relationship, Fluff, Getting Together, M/M, Memory Loss, Series VI, this is post-legion but I think pre-rimmerworld
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-14
Updated: 2016-04-14
Packaged: 2018-06-01 18:14:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6530806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ugandadistrict9/pseuds/ugandadistrict9
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Lister causes an accident that leads to Rimmer losing his memory, he is determined to redo things perfectly this time over.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> ANOTHER  
> ahh idk how i feel about this really i feel like its messy n i could have made it better but i was wayyy too excited about this idea. enjoy ;)

It wasn’t how Lister had expected to learn about light bees. Of all the possible ways he could imagine of discovering how they worked, this had not been one of them. He had always been intrigued by the technology, and given the opportunity, he would have happily read up about it, but killing Rimmer was not the proper way he had wanted to learn. He always thought he’d just read a manual, or something.

Kryten was currently searching Starbug for all knowledge they had of light bees for him, as he sat in the ‘bug’s drive room with it in his hands, baffled. The thing had a dent in it. He’d thought it would be a little more durable than this, to get dented from a short fall, but he supposed he had been wrong.

The light bee hadn’t exactly _fallen_ , so much as been pushed. Lister was the one that had fallen. He had fallen straight down the hatch, to one of Starbug’s storage decks, landing right on top of the darn thing. His arm still hurt from popping it back into place after dislocating it in the fall, but he was more worried about the piece of lifeless metal in his hands that had once been Rimmer.

He turned it over in his hands. What had happened? Rimmer had had a solid body just moments before, he could have sworn. But the next thing he knew, he had been transparent again, and Lister’s arm had gone through him, followed by his whole body with the momentum. He had reached desperately out for a hold on something to stop him from plummeting, but in his confusion, he hadn’t managed it. He had taken Rimmer and his poor, helpless projection device with him.

One of the biggest disadvantages of soft-light holograms was that physically, they were just this small piece of floating metal, concealed in their projected chest cavity. Although they couldn’t be touched, if you reached through them and grabbed their ‘bee’, you could move them where ever you wanted and there was nothing they could do about it. It was common courtesy to not touch a hologram’s light bee, but Lister had not done it on purpose.

His eyes had been closed, his lips puckered, and his fingers splayed. When he had begun to put his weight on Rimmer’s durable, solid body, it had suddenly been gone. He didn’t even had time to react before he fell down the hatch, landing right in top of it. It wasn’t far of a fall, but it had been a major shock to him. The last thing he had seen before the bee glitched and effectively died had been the projection of Rimmer’s shocked face, utterly surprised, blushing, and partially intersecting with Lister’s own.

“Mr. Lister, sir,” a familiar mechanoid’s voice said. Kryten stepped into the room, carrying a pathetic stack of books in his hands. “I have found everything we have on Starbug about holograms. I’m certain that there is loads more information aboard Red Dwarf, but we don’t have access to that right now. I wish I could be a better help, but I’m afraid that I don’t have much information in my database on light bees.”

“’s alright, Kryts.” Lister nodded a thank you. He took the books from Kryten and sat back down in his spinny chair. He set the books down by the control panels, and picked up a book called ‘Hologram Technology For Dummies’, a title that seemed best fit for his reading abilities.

“There isn’t too much about the actual projection devices themselves,” Kryten continued, “but I’ve found something I think you’ll find interesting.”

“What’s that?” he asked, flipping idly through the table of contents.

“We have spare light bees. Even if you can’t get that one repaired, there are some back-ups on one of the supply decks.”

Lister closed the book he was browsing. “We do?” He hadn’t even considered that possibility, but it was so much smarter. He couldn’t repair a broken light bee by himself, but he could probably figure out how to turn on a new one and upload Rimmer to it.

“We still have a back-up copy of Mr. Rimmer, as well, in case his personality disk has been damaged.”

“The disk that’s supposed to be Kristine Kochanski’s?”

“I believe so, sir.”

Lister’s face fell.

That Rimmer wasn’t the same as Lister’s Rimmer.

Sure, Rimmer’s doppelganger from way back when had technically been Rimmer, but he wasn’t the same. His memory would continue only from the time he had been shut off, onward. That had been years ago. Lister’s Rimmer had changed since then. That Rimmer hadn’t been through the bonding Lister and his Rimmer had. He hadn’t started to come to terms with himself.

That Rimmer hadn’t fallen in love with Lister.

Not to mention, Lister had killed that one voluntarily. That Rimmer would hate him even more than the original had.

“Is--is there any way we could upload _this_ Rimmer,” he held up the dented light bee, “to a back-up bee, from exactly the point before I broke him?”

“I-I’m afraid not, sir.” Kryten said, worried. “His data isn’t programmed to get backed up to Starbug, only to Red Dwarf. If you can’t recover this light bee, I’m afraid the only way of getting him back would be to boot up the other one.”

Lister’s heart sank. He had been through so much with this Rimmer. He had been about to kiss him when they fell. Lister had fallen in love with this Rimmer, and he couldn’t bear the thought of him being dead forever. Especially not when it was his fault. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself. A different Rimmer would still be Rimmer, but it wouldn’t be the same. He’d never convince a different Rimmer that the two of them were in love. It just wouldn’t work. He’d finally had something, and it had been promptly ripped from his hands.

He clenched his free hand into a fist. He wouldn’t let Rimmer die again.

He waved Kryten off, set the light bee down, and delved into one of the books.

*

“We have to fix him.” Lister protested.

He was taking a break from his reading to join the Cat in the dining area for supper. His eyes were hurting. He never knew reading could be so painful, it was supposed to be good for you. It helped you learn things or some smeg. He usually detested reading, but he found himself too worried about Rimmer to care about this fact.

“Why the hell should you care?” Cat scoffed as he dug into his second helping of smoked salmon.

“Because!” Lister stabbed his fork rather viciously into a piece of madras-covered pork. “Rimmer is our friend,” he insisted, “we can’t just bail on him like this. He’s done things for us, so we can do things for him. We’re a team!” he stated, chewing violently. “I wouldn’t let you die, would I?”

“Well, you can just save him on your own,” the Cat said, unfazed. “I couldn’t be any help, even if I wanted to be. I can't read stupid people books.”

“I’ll help in every way I can, sir,” Kryten chipped in.

“Thanks. I’ll call ya if I need ya,” Lister said quietly, dropping his fork into the now empty curry container as he stood up. Without another word, he returned to his quarters, where he had been trying his best to fix up the little bee for the good part of five hours already. He had skimmed through the entirety of ‘Hologram Technology For Dummies’ and three or four small manuals on holograms. The book had been quite interesting at points, grabbing his attention about things that were not necessarily important to his current endeavour, but certainly good factoids to know. The manuals, on the other hand, were just dull. He sat down on his bunk, picking up the ‘Holograms’ manual he had been picking through before he had given up for his dinner break.

The font was so small and hard to concentrate on, and the words were so smart and confusing. He didn’t know who this was designed for, but he was sure that even some of the smartest senior officers of Red Dwarf would be unable to decipher its contents.

He breathed a sigh, glancing at the damaged light bee that sat on his table. He leafed through the manual a bit more, before closing it and lying back on the bed, exhausted.

He reached out his hand and touched the piece of useless metal that had once been Rimmer. He took it in his hand, and drew it towards him. _If only I hadn’t been so eager to kiss him, I could have been more aware of what was happening_ , he thought to himself. _Why was I so eager? I’m such a thirsty bastard, ain’t I..._

He reprimanded himself for causing such an incident, cradling Rimmer’s bee in his hands. He missed him. What if he couldn’t get him back? He was terrified of that thought. They were already a measly few out here, alone, in space. He detested the thought of being even more alone. Over the years, Lister had also discovered that Holly had been very right about him needing Rimmer to keep sane. He had only recently been coming to terms with that realization, but now he was very much aware of just how much he needed Rimmer. If they were on Red Dwarf, they would’ve had Rimmer recovered by now.... but they weren’t. Lister was at a total loss for what to do.

He closed his eyes, touching his nose to the small device.

Lister was almost drifting to sleep, when he noticed the light bee become very, very hot. He opened his eyes, and found himself gaping as the bee began to glow.

“Rimmer?”

A red light was shining from it. It flashed the light several times, and it took Lister a while to do anything but stare.

It was alive! Rimmer was alive!

After the bee repeated the same pattern of flashes several times, Lister realized it was trying to communicate. It was using Morse code. Lister did know Morse code, but he was admittedly a little rusty at it.

“Go on,” he said. “’m ready this time.”

The bee silently blinked its light again.

“W...H...A...T,” Lister repeated its letters out loud, “H...A...P-- Happened, what happened?” he said. The bee quit blinking to let him talk. Rimmer could really hear him!

“You got broke,” Lister explained. “Well, I broke ya, actually. I didn’t mean it. I fell, and I landed on top o’ ya. I fell right through ya, an’ I took ya right down with me. You got dented a little, but considerin’ you’re not _dead_ dead, I think I can fix ya up somehow. I’ve been tryin’. ‘s not as easy as I thought it’d be. Everythin’s all complicated and smeg. Do you know what to do?”

The bee started to blink its light again.

“N...O.” Lister translated. “Oh.”

S-O-R-R-Y, it flashed.

“’s okay. I’m just glad you’re not dead.”

Rimmer’s light bee didn’t respond, but Lister continued talking to it, his voice softer than ever. He had never used this voice to talk to Rimmer before. “I don’t know what happened, but I’m glad you’re okay. I was worried, y’know. I really wanted to kiss you, y’know.... Why did you go to soft-light?” he asked. It hadn’t taken him very long to figure out what Rimmer had done. Right as Lister had leaned into him, eyes squeezed shut, Rimmer had switched from hard-light, to soft-light mode. His physical body had disappeared, and he had regressed back to a mere projection of light, allowing Lister to slip through him and fall clumsily to the storage deck below, rudely taking the bee that projected Rimmer’s essence along with him.

Rimmer didn’t respond for a while. Lister gazed at the light bee in silence.

When the device did respond, Lister missed what it said the first time. It did it so much more quickly than before, and he hadn’t been expecting it.

“Pardon?”

The light bee flashed its Morse message again.

-. . .-. ...- --- ..- ...

Lister mulled it over in his head. N, E, R.... what was next? a V?, then O, then....

Lister’s eyes widened. “Nervous?” he echoed.

The bee blinked its light once. That meant yes, right? But he didn’t even need to ask. He understood. Rimmer had been very flustered at the time. Lister hadn’t realized he was so afraid to be kissed by him, but it made sense. Rimmer was extremely tense, and recently he had been diagnosed with a nervous disorder, even. Lister started to punch himself mentally for damaging Rimmer’s bee. He should’ve been gentler with Rimmer, he should’ve done something differently, he should’ve...

Rimmer’s bee cut off his train of thought by flashing again.

N-O-T-U-R-F-A-U-L-T

Not his fault. Rimmer blamed himself, yet again. Lister shook his head.

“Don’t blame yourself, man. It’s a bit of both our faults. But it’s alright, I’ll get ya back. An’ then, hopefully, we can do it for real some time, hey?”

The bee did not respond.

Lister sat up. He knew there had to be a way to get Rimmer back, especially now that he knew he was just damaged, not gone.

“I’m gonna go see if Kryten’s got any idea. These books haven’t been proving helpful. Stay put.”

He set Rimmer back down on his bedside table, and went off to go find Kryten.

*

Kryten seemed to be fascinated by the fact that the bee could communicate all by itself. Lister had seen something about it in one of the manuals, but it had been too complicated for him to make sense of.

“How d’you reckon we fix him?”

“Considering that he is alive and well, it shouldn’t be as hard as I’d thought. His personality disk is probably in fine shape...” Kryten mulled it over. “However, sir, a dent is a lot harder to deal with than, say, a missing screw or something.”

“Yeah.... I can’t believe I dented ‘im. ‘s not a very big dent, but I still dented ‘im. I damaged a really fancy piece of technology. Not only that, I nearly killed Rimmer.”

“It’s quite alright, sir, I think I may be able to do something about this. Knowing that Mr. Rimmer is still alive certainly changes everything about the situation. In this case, we know he is not gone, it's simply that the bee has stopped projecting his image. It’s possible I may be able to change some parts of the bee by taking them from a spare.”

“Really?” Lister yawned, not out of boredom, but from the tiredness getting to him.

“I believe so. If you’ll accept my help and hand over Mr. Rimmer’s light bee, I bet I’ll have him fixed in no time! Meanwhile, you should get some sleep, sir.”

“You’re right.” It was nearly 2AM. Lister had stayed up later than this in his lifetime, but his brain was tired from all the thinking, and his arm was starting to hurt like a real bitch.

Lister grabbed the bee off his table. “Careful with him,” he warned, before handing it over. Kryten nodded. Lister rolled his bad shoulder a few times, and gave a small wave to the mechanoid with his left. “G’night.”

“Good night, sir. I’ll be sure to report to you on Mr. Rimmer’s state as soon as you wake up.”

“Wake me up right away if anythin’ important happens, okay?”

“Of course.”

He heard Kryten patter away down the hall. He yawned again, flopping down on his bunk. It wasn’t the comfiest bed ever, but again, he had had much worse in his life. Having a bed at all was luxury compared to the storage locker that he had slept in on Mimas. But still, the hardness of the bed had him missing his homely quarters on Red Dwarf.

He snuggled in, a lot more comfortable now that his worries for Rimmer had mostly subsided. He was greatly assured by the fact that when he awoke, Rimmer would likely be up and about again.

He relived their almost-kiss moment hundreds of times. The events that led up to it were actually quite underwhelming, but the moment before the fall in and of itself had been special to Lister. He bet it was to Rimmer, too.

For a couple of weeks prior, the two of them had become a lot closer. They never talked about why, but they'd even held hands from time to time.

The time of their not-quite kiss, Rimmer had been emerging from Starbug's supply decks, when Lister had asked him if he was okay. This was due to the fact that Rimmer had left his special stress balls in the drive room, and Lister wanted to know if he needed them. Rimmer had shook his head, assuring that he was okay.

When he reached the top of the latter, Lister took his hand. He held it gently, entwining their fingers.

Rimmer had smiled down at him. The hand-holding wasn’t too unusual to them, it had become a gesture of comfort. This time was the 5th time that they had held hands.

The shorter man squeezed the hand, and in a very gentle voice, he had asked, “Can I kiss you?”

It had been random, out of nowhere, really, but it had felt right then. Rimmer looked apprehensive, and a blush had even appeared on his projected face. His eyes darted around to make sure they were alone, and he gave a nervous, curt nod. Lister puckered his lips, squeezing his eyes shut, and started leaning towards Rimmer, standing up on tip-toe.

Rimmer must have gotten too overwhelmed as Lister went to put his free hand on his chest, and before Lister's lips could meet his, he had squicked out, quickly regressing to soft-light. He hadn't thought of the hatch and the drop to the supply decks below them, nor the fact that Lister was leaning so much into him that him ceasing to exist physically would cause the scouser to plummet about 7 feet onto a metal floor and dislocate his arm. He definitely had not anticipated the fact that his light bee was in the fall path, and would be taken down with him. He had just been too nervous, and wanted out. It wasn’t that he hadn’t wanted a kiss, it was just that he didn’t know how to deal with the situation. He was unready.

Lister felt bad about it, now. They had all the time in the world to be together, he didn’t need to rush him on it. He fell asleep thinking about all the other times they would get to kiss.

He dreamt of Rimmer.

Upon waking, he would no longer be sure of what happened in these dreams or of whether they made sense or not, but while he slept, he slept more peacefully than he ever had.

*

Lister awoke with an intense ache in his right shoulder, and a soreness in his elbow. Had he hurt his elbow, too? He rolled up his sleeve and found that there was a rather ugly bruise on it. He grimaced.

It was 9AM. He wondered if Kryten had fixed Rimmer yet.

He stood up, clutching his shoulder and started to walk out the door.

When he made it down into the dining room, he spotted Kryten, tidying up.

“Mornin',” he greeted.

“Good morning, sir,” Kryten smiled. “You're up early.”

Lister ignored the small talk. “Where's Rimmer?”

“I've replaced the damaged parts on him with parts from a spare light bee. He should be up and running in no time, sir.”

“If you've fixed all the problems, then why isn't he already runnin' right now?” Lister pressed.

“Well, he needs to charge, sir.” Kryten looked a little surprised at Lister’s intense concern, but he was polite enough not to ask. “Light bees have a battery that needs to be recharged. On Red Dwarf, it recharged automatically while he slept. Here, we're supposed to charge him manually, using the portable charging device.”

“Oh...? Well, ok. So you're sayin' he's alright?”

“Presumably, yes. Once his bee is charged, Mr. Rimmer should be back to normal.”

“Thanks, Kryten.” Lister smiled, relieved. Rimmer would be okay. He crossed by him and into the kitchen, and grabbed himself a glass of cold vindaloo sauce from the fridge and took the saran wrap off the top. It was still too early to be up, in Lister's book. He sat back down at the table, nursing his morning pick-me-up.

“Where's Cat?”

“Asleep,” said Kryten.

Lister didn't respond to that. There was no point.

He sipped his sauce. He didn't understand how people could find drinking cold curry sauce to be disgusting. Vindaloo was Lister's favourite food, why could it not be his favourite drink as well? It was better than it sounded, honestly. It was cold, but it was hot. He liked it. Rimmer and the Cat seemed bent on calling it disgusting every single morning, but he didn’t care. He sat at the table for a while after finishing his drink, just feeling the acute burn in his mouth.

When he stood up, his shoulder was bugging him again. He rolled it, clutching at the elbow with his good hand.

“Rimmer in the drive room?”

“Yes, sir,” Kryten replied. “Are you alright?”

“Just fine,” Lister said unconvincingly. He didn’t really care about that right now. He wanted to check up on Rimmer.

“Oh, and, just a quick warning, Mr. Lister, sir, but when Mr. Rimmer first comes back, he may suffer from a few ... minor glitches.”

“Glitches?” Lister stopped, turning to face the android again. “You never mentioned anything about that.”

“It would only be as result from the replaced parts. I assure you, he is perfectly alright.”

“What kind of glitches?”

“Possibly slight memory loss, and maybe some glitches with his projection. Nothing he can’t get past. He should be perfectly okay apart from that.”

Lister squinted skeptically. “He’d better be,” he said as he turned and walked into the drive room.

Rimmer’s light bee sat in its cute little charging port on the control panel nearest the door. Lister sat down in the chair, leaning his elbows on the desk and staring at the little bee. It wasn’t like he had anything else to do anyway. He was still so dreadfully tired, he thought about going back to sleep.

He thought about getting up and getting a cup of coffee to wake himself up. He stared at the little blinking green light on Rimmer’s bee’s charger.

Rimmer....

*

Lister didn’t have any recollection of falling asleep, and was disoriented to find himself face down on the console in one of the Starbug drive room’s chairs. What was he doing sleeping in the drive room? He rubbed his head as he sat up. He had a knot in his back, and his face hurt.

A spiking pain in his shoulder as he attempted to stretch reminded him of what he had been doing in the drive room. Clutching the arm, he jumped to his feet. Rimmer! Where was Rimmer? The light bee was no longer in the charger. Before Lister could even turn around, someone walked into the room.

“Lister?”

“Rimmer!” Lister spun around to see none other standing in the doorway. A large grin spread across his face. “You’re okay!” he exclaimed, relieved.

“I am, yes,” Rimmer said, “Or at least I think. Kryten told me that my light bee got broken ... I don’t remember it, though.”

Lister grimaced. The mechanoid had been right.

“How much don’t you remember?”

Rimmer chewed his holographic lip pensively. “All of it,” he said.

“Smegging great,” Lister ran a hand through his greasy hair.

“You’re telling me.”

“So you literally don’t remember a thing? You don’t remember how you got broke? -- What happened before that?”

Rimmer shook his head.

“What’s the last thing you remember?”

“When--” Rimmer thought for a moment. “Hum. I’m not too sure. Kryten said that I lost almost a month’s worth of memory.”

“A month!?” Lister echoed, incredulous.

The hologram shrugged.

Lister couldn’t believe what he was hearing.

Well, he could, but he wasn’t enjoying it. How would he work out the complications of his relationship with Rimmer now? Or what was going to be a relationship. Or what had been was going to be a relationship.

A smegging month? The first time he and Rimmer had held hands had been three weeks ago. Rimmer didn’t remember it. He didn’t remember the second, third, fourth, or fifth times either.

“Okay,” he said, more to calm himself down than anything. “’s alright, ‘s okay. Not much important's happened since then. It's pretty uneventful out here, you know that.”

“Are you sure?” Rimmer asked. He didn't seem very comfortable with the fact that he had done an entire months worth of things and now he didn't remember any of them, but Lister did. It was sort of like waking up after a party where everyone remembered what crazy drunken things you’d done, except for you, because you’d been too drunk.

“I'm sure,” Lister lied.

He wasn't sure how to go about this. Though it was probable Rimmer had already fallen for him, he had not acted on it yet, and it was unlikely that he would. Lister couldn't just tell Rimmer about his own feelings for Lister. It felt wrong to just tell him they were going to kiss. He needed to get it to happen again, on his own. Without telling Rimmer that they had done it before. He wanted Rimmer to want to be with him, not be shoved into it by binding obligations of ‘had-been-was-going-to-have-happened’s

“Remind me again, how did I get broken?”

“We took a... a bit of a _tumble_ , an’ I fell on top of your light bee a bit.”

“Yes, but why was my light bee exposed? I have a physical body now. You shouldn’t have been able to land on it. My body is indestructible! What on Io were you doing to have possibly broken it?”

“You have a physical body, but you can switch it off, can't you?”

“Well, yes, but _why_? Why would I have switched it off?”

Lister knew why, but he shrugged instead. “You did, though. Can't change the past.”

Rimmer grumbled something under his breath.

Not a great foot for the two to start on. Lister thought for a moment that he should just tell Rimmer why he had turned off hard-light, and what they had been doing at the time, but he opted not to. He wanted Rimmer to be able to remember the feelings and the moments as well. Their not-quite kiss was no longer an important moment for Rimmer. He didn't even know it had happened. In a way, it was sort of unfair to keep stuff from Rimmer like this, but Lister had decided it was for the better. He'd probably tell him later, anyway.

Rimmer said something else, but Lister didn't really hear. He was too busy trying to think this out. How had the hand-holding happened the first time? It sort of just ... happened. The moment had been right, or something. How was he supposed to recreate that?

Maybe...... Where had they been? They had been in the drive room. They were sitting in the drive room, talking about the terrifying vastness of the universe. Rimmer had been distant, and a little afraid, and Lister had taken his hand. The mood had been right, it had been a correct thing to do. Without another word, they had sat, hand in hand, staring out the front window at the millions of stars. The moment had ended when Kryten had called them for dinner, and they had quickly pulled their hands away. They had looked at each other, both equally incredulous. They had never mentioned the moment again.

Lister loved that moment ... He wanted Rimmer to love it, too. He felt a pang of an unfamiliar feeling in his chest. Just telling him about was totally lackluster. It wasn’t right. He needed to recreate it. To Rimmer, it had never happened. He needed to make it happen again, for Rimmer to experience How would he go about that? He--

“Lister!” Rimmer's scolding voice drew him away from his thoughts. “I'm talking to you, jizz stain!”

‘Jizz stain’ was not nearly the worst thing Rimmer had ever called him, but Lister was wounded. He had gone from smooth criminal, about to get a kiss from his crush, to _jizz stain_? This whole 'creating the perfect romantic moment' thing was going be harder than he had thought.

That wasn't exactly something someone said to someone they were in love with. But then again, Rimmer was sort of an unusual someone.

“Sorry, sorry,” Lister apologized. “I'm tryin' to remember if anythin' happened this month. Time sorta tends to blur together out here.”

“Well? Did anything happen? Anything at all? In an entire month? Did one single thing happen? Do tell, Listy.”

“Hmm...” Lister pretended to think about it some more. “No. Not that I can think of,” he said nonchalantly.

Rimmer looked like he was bursting with protest, but he couldn't really argue. He had to agree that nothing really ever happened out here in space, and they had clearly made no progress towards Red Dwarf. Plus, he had had an entire section of his memory erased due to malfunctions. He literally couldn’t possibly know better than Lister this time.

“Alright,” he said, unconvinced.

“You'll be fine,” Lister assured, padding out of the drive room, leaving Rimmer to his thoughts. He had thoughts of his own to tend to.

How would he get Rimmer to the stage of wanting to kiss him again? He couldn’t remember if the dead man had ever expressed any sign of desiring a relationship with him a month ago. He doubted it. He needed that moment in the drive room. It was the first key point in their not-quite relationship. The kiss was supposed to be what took the “not quite” off the top there, but it had turned out to be bit of a cock-up. A flamingo-up, even. Almost-kiss turned almost-murder. That wasn't a good one for the books. Honestly, it was probably better that Rimmer didn't remember it.

Lister was also glad that Rimmer didn’t know the reason why he had changed back to soft-light. It wouldn’t have been embarrassing, hadn’t it caused such an incident. There was nothing wrong with being nervous, in Lister’s opinion. But Rimmer already hated himself enough, and he knew that the hologram would be more than a little ashamed with that knowledge.

Lister wanted to redo their first kiss moment right this time. And if he got it just right, he would never, ever have to tell Rimmer how it had happened the first time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it just felt better to divide this into chapters idk

Lister and Rimmer sat in the drive room.

“What are we doing in here?” the hologram asked. He seemed rather annoyed at Lister at the moment.

“Just lookin' at the stars,” Lister shrugged. “Always helps me when 'm feelin' down. You seemed out of sorts.”

When Rimmer opened his mouth to protest, Lister cut him off. “Don't get your knickers in a twist, 's not like we got anythin' better to be doin'.”

Rimmer grimaced. Lister instantly regretted the put-down. Rimmer was rightfully aggravated. Memory loss sucked. He had been there. In the hologram's case, though it was worse, even, because his memory wouldn't recover over time. It had been completely deleted.

Lister turned and looked out the drive room window, and thought about what he was doing for a moment. He probably should've waited longer. It was probable that Rimmer hadn’t truly fallen for him yet. It seemed unlikely that he had done so in a week, but Lister was entertaining a lot of insecurities at the moment. Maybe he should have just told Rimmer outright.

 _No_ , he thought. _I’d’ve hated that if he did it to me._

Rimmer deserved to have a say in the matter at least. Maybe he’d change his mind. Lister hated that thought. He surmised that without this first hand-holding moment in the drive room, he wouldn’t get to that stage in their almost relationship where they’d been right before he broke Rimmer.

He glanced back over at Rimmer, then back out to space.

This was the scene.

The silence hadn’t really set a correct mood, but it was as good as any. He’d take it. He couldn’t stall it any longer. It was now or never. (It wasn’t, really, but to Lister, it sure felt like it.)

How had he started the conversation then? They had been here, in the drive room, looking out at space, and Lister had said something, he had said....

“Do you ever wonder why we’re here?”

That had been it.....Hadn’t it? He thought so. It might have been. Probably. Maybe.

Or maybe that was from a movie, actually.

He cringed inwardly. Too late, now.

“Why we’re here?” Rimmer asked. “Because we lost the Dwarf, and now we’re on Starbug. Even I remember that one, Lister. You’re a total, total gimboid sometimes, I swear.”

Lister rolled his eyes. “No, I mean, why are we _here_. Why do we even _exist_? Why did we get lucky enough to still be here today, when no other human is left? Is it even luck? I mean, our lives have sort of gone...” he paused, “...downhill. I mean, for starters, you’re dead,”

Rimmer scrunched his face up, his nostrils flared in that gitty, Rimmery way. Lister tried not to be annoyed. This was not how it had happened. He definitely should have waited.

“Why this, all of a sudden?”

“Just--just because, I guess. I dunno,” Lister stumbled for an explanation. “Doesn’t looking out at space make you think about, I dunno, the endlessness of the universe, or some smeg?”

“You what?”

“The endless _vastness_ of the universe, that’s it.”

“Lister, what the smeg are you talking about?” Rimmer demanded, miffed.

Great. Lister had gone and cocked this up, too. Where had his charm gone? Where was Smooth Criminal David Lister when he needed him?

He sighed. “It’s nothing. Forget it.”

“It’s not nothing, though, Lister!” Rimmer protested, standing up. “You’ve been weird to me this whole time. Ever since I got turned back on, you’ve been acting all bizarro. ‘fess up. What happened in the month?”

“Nothing!” Lister argued, hopping to his feet as well. “Calm down, Rimmer. I know it’s scary, havin’ your memory gone, but you’re just makin’ it harder by bein’ all anal about it.” His voice softened. He looked at Rimmer in the face. “Settle down, ‘kay? I’m here for you. Nothin’ scary happened, I promise. I‘m sorry if I’m actin’ weird, I don’t mean to.”

Rimmer shook his head, trying to calm down. “It's just so disorienting, having my memory gone. It’s not fair, having you know things about me that I don’t. I feel so worthless. And now you’re being all ... all _smeggy_ , and it’s just-- It’s frustrating.”

“Hey,” Lister said, voice gentle. “I'll help ya through it, don't worry,”

Lost in Rimmer’s insecure frown, Lister reached out without thinking. He took Rimmer’s hand in his own, and squeezed it reassuringly.

Rimmer froze. Lister immediately cursed himself. He had forgotten that the hologram was apprehensive about being touched. Lister shoved his hand into his jacket pocket, ducking his head apologetically.

“I'll be in the...” he mumbled with a point out the door.

“Wait.” Rimmer stopped him before he could leave. He had a faint blush on his face. “You're lying to me. I have missed something.”

“You don’t know that.”

Rimmer huffed. “Tell me what happened over the month I no longer have in my memory,” he demanded. “Tell me what happened _between_ us.”

Lister breathed a heavy sigh. It was useless to try and lie to Rimmer any longer. “We were sorta gettin' together,” he admitted quietly. “We never talked about it, but we held hands sometimes. The first time, we were in the drive room, talkin' about existential crises an' stuff. We were about to kiss for the very first time when we had the accident.”

“About to--to kiss??” Rimmer blushed, stupefied. “Lister, are... are you telling me the truth?”

“The whole truth.” When Rimmer didn't seem convinced, he threw his hands up. “I swear it! I wouldn't lie about somethin' like this. I’m bein’ honest this time, I promise!”

“We were ... about to kiss, and then we just fell? That sounds stupid. What kind of strange kiss were we partaking in?”

“We were gonna kiss, right by the hatch to the cargo bay. You got nervous and switched off hard-light, and since I was sorta usin' you for balance, I toppled over and took your light bee down with me.”

“See, was that so hard to admit? I knew you'd been acting fishy lately!” Rimmer exclaimed. After getting a good yell in there, he took the time to digest the information. “But why? Why did you keep this from me? I had every right to know, Lister, so why?”

“I was goin' to tell ya, Rimmer, I was,” Lister vindicated himself, “but I just wanted you to be there to experience it for yourself. I didn't want to force you into a relationship with me just because it had already happened but your memory of it got deleted, I wanted you to like me for _me_ and experience fallin’ in love,” he said. “Oh, and also, I didn't wanna tell ya about the kiss part, ‘cause, well, as you can probably tell, it didn't look so good. Nearly killin’ your almost-boyfriend and dislocatin’ your shoulder are not good ways to go about first kisses. I wanted to redo that right; make our first kiss special, ’n’ meaningful.”

Rimmer stared at him, dumbfounded.

“Look, I just wanted you to experience love, man,” Lister justified, “I--”

Rimmer hushed him by taking his hands. Rimmer’s hands were warm.

“--love you....” Lister mumbled. He met Rimmer's gaze. The hologram's eyes were wide in amazement and something else. Something bright and warm.

His eyes were brimmed with .... tears?

Rimmer was crying.

His shoulders shook a bit, and the first holographic tears rolled down his face. Rimmer was usually stronger than this, but Lister had broken him. Again. This time, though, he was happy.

So, _so_ happy.

Rimmer was so happy, he didn't know what to do about it. So he wept.

Lister pulled him into a hug.

Neither of them spoke.

Eventually, Rimmer's crying had slowed, and he pulled back slightly from Lister, still keeping his arms securely around him, as if afraid of letting go.

Lister knew this was the moment. The mood was exactly right, Rimmer was happy. And he was crying, and Lister wanted to comfort him.

Lister repeated the same soft tone of voice he remembered using last time, although it was new to Rimmer.

“Can I kiss you?” he asked, not shying Rimmer's red-eyed gaze. The look on Rimmer's face made Lister's heart do a leap in his chest. This was it.

Rimmer didn't look around to make sure they were alone.

He didn't nod curtly.

He just squeezed his eyes shut, pulled Lister towards him by the waist, and pressed their lips together.

Lister could've sworn he saw fireworks as he pulled back, star-struck.

He had gotten it just right.

“Listy,” Rimmer said after a moment of lovely haze.

“Yeah?”

“I...”

Lister hushed him with a pap to the shoulder. “You don't need to say anythin', Arn. I know.”

“N-no, no, it's not that... I was just thinking, wondering if maybe, it's time to move out of the drive room?”

Lister looked out the door. Nobody was around. There was only two others on this ship anyway. What did it even matter?

He turned back, shrugged, said, “Not quite,” and pulled the hologram into another, deliberate, unhurried kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> this is so long i cant even believe.... anyway!! i really loved writing this so i hope u enjoyed!!


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